Let it Grow, Let it Grow

So lately I've been having a lot of late-night hang-out sessions with my best-friend, writer-buddy, downstairs-neighbor Mires, and the two of us have done a bit of joint brainstorming. We've tried to prod each other into taking down notes and actually writing, and in the process we've both learned some new things about our stories and our characters. With Mires' help, I've sat down and had a long think about the direction my own current WiP is going, and the direction it's since taken has actually kind of startled me.

I've had these characters in my head for a good five years now, and the first incarnation of their story came out of my very first year participating in NaNoWriMo, back in 2010. I abandoned the project after getting kind of muddy in my first attempts at entering the world of publishing, but it grabbed on and didn't let go until I finally came back to it. I've gone through so many different ideas with this story that what it is now is similar but definitely not the same. It's grown. It's grown a lot. Just when I didn't think it could grow in scope any more than it already has, Mires and I had one of those brainstorming sessions.

The ideas we both presented got my thoughts spinning in new directions, and now that I'm faced with the necessity to write all of this down and consider it, it's daunting. I had a solid direction with this story for years, even if it's taken me a while to come back to it, but now I'm faced with adding in all these new, fresh ideas that I've fallen in love with. It's kind of scary. It's so tempting to take those cool new ideas and lock them in a box, because rewriting the same old story is comfortable.

I can't let myself do that, though. I have to let this story grow, because if I try to stifle it, it's not going to go anywhere. It's going to get caught in an infinite loop of rewriting the same story and never being satisfied, because I'll deny it the fresh air it needs to grow into something strong and powerful.

So.

It's not back to the drawing board, per se, but I've got a lot of notetaking in front of me. Timelines, history notes, character profiles, subtle political tones, all of that has got to be documented before I can take it and play with it on cards and white boards and eventually the manuscript.

It's daunting, but I can't deny my excitement.

Revisions never bothered me anyway...

'Til next time,
J.